Groupon Partners With Russia's Facebook

Groupon is partnering with Odnoklassniki (literally: "Classmates"), one of the biggest Facebook clones in Russia, to expand its footprint in the region. (FT)

Odnoklassniki just happens to be owned by DST, which is a big investor in Groupon. Groupon had previously bought a Russian clone called Darberry.

The deal makes sense all around. Group buying sites use advertising on social networks a lot to get people to sign up to their services. The deal will probably mean more/better advertising on the site for Groupon and more money for Odnoklassniki. This is also a bit of a coup for DST, which tends to be viewed as just a giant wallet instead of a "value added" investor, but in this case Groupon is clearly getting more than cash out of the relationship.